Pricing and Features
LiquidWeb’s main advantage over its competitors is its stellar customer support — so good, apparently, that the company has gone ahead and trademarked it under the name “Heroic Support.” They pair this dedication with a whole range of impressive server configurations and flexible feature bundles, which at least justifies their higher prices. However, this flexibility comes via a somewhat confusing matrix of choices. Fortunately, Comparakeet is here to walk you through it.
13th Place8.4 out of 10First things first, if you want to sign up at LiquidWeb, you have to decide how much support you want to receive regularly. There are three tiers: Fully Managed, Core Managed, and Self Managed. The Fully Managed plan gives you cPanel or Plesk software, and it offloads all the hardware, server software, and even third-party application management to LiquidWeb’s team. Meanwhile, if you want a smidgen more control over your server but without control panel software, there’s the Core Managed plan. And if you’d like to take on everything but hardware and infrastructure management, you can opt for the Self Managed plan.
Having selected the degree of LiquidWeb’s server management services, you can then dive into their range of server options — and there are a lot. At the lowest end of the spectrum are individual quad-core Intel Xeon processors, though your choices climb all the way up to servers running on multiple hexa-core (or more) Intel Xeon processors. Prices climb accordingly, though, and for the set of processors on offer, LiquidWeb pegs fees between $199 to a whopping $1099 per month.
Like some of its competitors, LiquidWeb’s server configuration choices follow an “a la carte” plan: your choice of processor sets your base monthly fee, and each additional setting may add costs if you choose to upgrade from the default options. In the case of RAM, for example, you start at a minimum of 16 GB, with options to go as high as a staggering 512 GB of RAM if you have need – and the cash – for it. Likewise, all plans start at a minimum of 250 GB of SSD storage and 1 TB of SATA drive as backup (though higher-tier plans have higher starting capacities), and you can pay anywhere from $50 to $400 to get as high as 4 TB of SSD or SATA storage for your primary and backup drives.
There are other options as well: you can get additional storage arrays, continuous remote backups, and even choose your server’s chassis, among others. All plans also come with a default 5 TB of outgoing bandwidth, paired with unlimited incoming bandwidth, and a free IP address. Like the other features, you can scale up bandwidth or number of IP addresses by adding to your total monthly fee.
As for operating systems, LiquidWeb gives you a choice among CentOS 6 and 7, which are free; CloudLinux 6 and 7, which cost $20; Ubuntu 12, 14, or 16, also free; and Windows 2012 Standard, which $20 – $125 a month depending on the version you get. Apache and MS SQL 2014 Express Edition are free includes, but again, you can pay extra for different software. Likewise, you can get cPanel or Plesk for $20 a month. LiquidWeb also offers a host of other features, like advanced DDoS attack protection and private switches. Essentially, your monthly fee can be as low as $199, or as astronomical as a couple of thousand dollars a month. It all depends on what features you get for your server.
This control over how you spend your money extends to LiquidWeb’s payment schemes, which eschew contract terms that last for years, in favor of monthly billings. This means you don’t get locked in to service plans with potentially escalating prices, and you can terminate services at any time. The downside, though, is that LiquidWeb doesn’t offer money-back guarantees for its dedicated server hosting plans.
If you do decide to take the plunge, rest assured that LiquidWeb gives you a great Service Level Agreement in return. Aside from the standard uptime guarantee, the company carries guarantees for server hardware, datacenter infrastructure, and even customer service response time. For uptime, the company offers 10x the cost if they deliver less than 100% uptime, with a similar compensation offer for infrastructure downtime. As for hardware, they guarantee replacement within half an hour of identifying the problem –that’s half the timeframe set by most competing providers’ hardware guarantees.
Customer Support
What LiquidWeb considers its biggest competitive advantage, though, is its trademark Heroic Support. The company boasts several teams dedicated to various aspects of server upkeep, maintenance, and troubleshooting: a team dedicated to setup, for example, as well as separate teams for support, server monitoring, and network maintenance, among others.
The support team can be reached through phone, live chat, and their ticket-based HelpDesk system. Like the SLA performance guarantees, LiquidWeb also offers an initial response time guarantee: 10x the amount of excess time if they don’t respond within 30 minutes (for support tickets) or 59 seconds (for livechat and phone).
What's the Verdict on LiquidWeb?
LiquidWeb Dedicated Hosting Review – Conclusion
For all of the flexibility without sacrificing any performance, give LiquidWeb a shot. The company offers a dizzying array of powerful options, so you’re guaranteed to find a package that suits your dedicated hosting needs. LiquidWeb’s “a la carte” configuration matrix could tip your chosen plan over to the pricier side, but you do get your pick of cutting-edge hardware and an extensive set of additional features. And beyond the technical specifications, there’s the company’s renowned customer support: from rock-solid uptime, hardware, and infrastructure guarantees to assured initial response times, LiquidWeb is a company that puts its money where its mouth is.
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